Michael Giacchino

MICHAEL GIACCHINO was born in 1967 in Riverside Township, New Jersey. He started venturing into music at the age of ten. Creating his own stop motion animation films on his brother's pool table, Giacchino found the most enjoyable part of the process was putting music to the pictures. This led him to join the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he majored in film production and had a minor in history. After graduating, Giacchino began studying music at the Juilliard School at the Lincoln Center. During this time he worked day jobs at the publicity offices for Disney and Universal. Two years later he joined the Disney Studios in Burbank, Califronia, where he worked in the company’s film publicity department. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Disney Interactive, becoming an assistant producer on its various video game productions. He continued to study music in the evenings and on weekends.

Giacchino’s first major composition came in 1997 when newly formed DreamWorks Interactive asked him to score their flagship PlayStation game, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Based on Steven Spielberg's hit movie of the same name, the console game became the first to have a live orchestral score.

In 1998, Giacchino was commissioned to write a symphonic piece to celebrate the new millennium. His 25-minute score, named Camden 2000, was performed by the Hattonfield Symphony and helped raise money for the redevelopment of the city.

Giacchino continued writing for video games including Small Soldiers, Warpath: Jurassic Park, and in 1999, the first in the Medal of Honor franchise, on which he would eventually score four further sequels.

In 2001 filmmaker J.J. Abrams, a fan of Giacchino’s Medal of Honor scores, hired him to write for his new show, Alias, which continued for a five season run. It also led to Giacchino's largest project, the iconic series Lost, on which he scored every episode. The final recording session for the show took place on May 7th 2010, and a farewell concert was held on May 13th, which was attended by many fans, cast and crew.

During the six-year period on Lost, Giacchino continued writing for video games including Call of Duty and Secret Weapons Over Normandy, and also launched his career into feature films in 2004 when he was asked to score Pixar's The Incredibles.

In 2006 Giacchino scored J.J. Abrams' feature film directorial debut, Mission: Impossible III, and returned to Pixar a year later, scoring Ratatouille, which earned him an Oscar nomination. He also scored several Pixar shorts over the years including Lifted, Partly Cloudy and Day & Night.

Giacchino’s strong relationship with J.J. Abrams continues to this day. Following Mission: Impossible III, Giacchino wrote a 12-minute end credits suite for the horror film Cloverfield, scored the opening episodes of sci-fi show Fringe with Chad Seiter, and scored Abrams' reboot of the Star Trek franchise.

Giacchino continued working with Pixar, scoring Up, on which he won two Grammys®, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA award and an Oscar. During the same year he also scored two feature films, three short movies, the Disney Christmas special Prep and Landing and the fifth season of Lost. Giacchino hosted an AMPAS music-and-animation event and also served as honorary president at the International Film Music Conference in Spain.

His other projects include director Matt Reeves' thriller Let Me In, Pixar's Cars 2, J.J. Abrams’ Super 8, and Brad Bird's Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

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